Desiring Machine

What is it about April Fools day that makes it such a favorite holiday of geeks? Slashdot goes pink and celebrates ponies.

Apple Computer founded itself on April Fools day in 1976, Steve Wozniak was an incurable joker. April Fools day is the one holiday that geeks tend to go all out for. It is one of those lighthearted days that brings the practical joker out of everybody.

April Fools is one of those delighfully simple holidays that helps ring in the spring season with a celebration of mischief and tom foolery. The holiday is unfettered with onerous solemnity and sacredness. This lack of theological encumbrance is what makes the holiday what it is. You would never hear some pundit drone on and on about how the secularists are killing the holiday by refusing to prioritize one religion over another. There is not this soul searching for the lost and true meaning of the holiday. In practice April Fools day is the expression of holidays in their purest form, a marking of time through action and ritual. But this particular holiday challenges our perceptions of truth and our trust in others. We play with truth and falsity with a kind of inspired innoncence. All is illusion and we are fine with that, on this day more than others.

There are many theories about the origin of April Fools Day. One theory ascribes the origin of the holiday to the changing of a calendar. The theory is that in the middle ages the western world changed from a Julian to a Gregorian calendar. This moved the new year from end of March to the beginning of January. After the calendar change went into effect there were a few hold outs who refused to go by the new calendar and continued to persist in celebrating the new year at the beginning of April. These folks became the object of practical jokes in the form of paper fish tagged to their backs and referred to as Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish.

Another theory goes back to british folk lore:

British folklore links April Fool’s Day to the town of Gotham, the legendary town of fools located in Nottinghamshire. According to the legend, it was traditional in the 13th century for any road that the King placed his foot upon to become public property. So when the citizens of Gotham heard that King John planned to travel through their town, they refused him entry, not wishing to lose their main road. When the King heard this, he sent soldiers to the town. But when the soldiers arrived in Gotham, they found the town full of lunatics engaged in foolish activities such as drowning fish or attempting to cage birds in roofless fences. Their foolery was all an act, but the King fell for the ruse and declared the town too foolish to warrant punishment. And ever since then, April Fool’s Day has supposedly commemmorated their trickery.

What is it about geeks in particular that seem to relish in this holiday? I think it boils down to a child like innocence and playfulness that the spring time holiday evokes. It is in this playfullness and innocence that we find renewal and rebirth with our relations to the world. On this day nothing can be taken for granted, and we must approach everything with curiosity and the insight of a child. There is a refusal to see the world as given but rather make it according to our imagination. And this is the heart and soul of the geek personality trait. Many will ignore you, many will write you off. But being overlooked is your greatest strength. Because when you are overlooked they will forget about you and forget that you are changing the world.